5 centimes - Le Mans

France organized its prisoner-of-war camps by military region during the First World War, and the 4e Région — headquartered at Le Mans — issued its own internal scrip precisely because conventional currency could not be permitted to circulate freely among POW populations. The concern was practical: money that could leave the camp was a resource for escape. Denominations this small were designed for canteen use only, keeping any transaction within the wire.

Ch. Blanchet was a local Le Mans printer with no particular connection to the Banque de France. The printing is functional rather than secure — which matters, because camp scrip of this type was routinely counterfeited by prisoners, and surviving examples occasionally show crude forgeries that passed without detection.